Media, how amusing...

Neil Postman in “Amusing Ourselves to Death” delivers delightful insight on how our society has become media saturated. The novel was written in 1985, and many of his views can still be referenced today. In the first section of the book, Postman states that “our politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.”
Postman bases his main theory for this book on entertainment. Entertainment is the sole culprit for our lack of media literacy. Postman believes we use television for various reasons but for the most part we use it for our personal entertainment. He puts a negative spin on T.V. by saying that our youth uses television as an education tool. Through various shows like Sesame Street, our youth is learning facts from a big yellow bird instead of from teachers and parents. I found this hard to swallow due to the fact that a child has to have some knowledge of learning prior to watching these shows or he/she would not be able to comprehend what the child is watching.
But to be fair, Postman brings up a good point that television has become another source of education for our youth. Shows like Blue’s Clues and Barney are leading educational shows that re-enforce what they learn in school. Things like counting, the alphabet, and proper hygiene are some topics children learn on these shows.
The habits we learn as a child carry throughout our lives. We might not want to admit it, but adults still use television as an educational tool. Discovery and History channels teach adults on various topics that we might not be interested in otherwise.
In conclusion, television was mainly invented to televise national information to its viewers. But it has evolved to be so much more over the years. Children and adults alike use its marvel to further ones education on certain topics. Postman had it correct when stating, “The classroom is, at the moment, still tied to the printed word, although that connection is rapidly weakening. Meanwhile, television forges ahead, making no concessions to its great technological predecessor, creating new conceptions of knowledge and how it is acquired.”

Are you sure you are getting the right facts?

Many readers of local media truly belive they are getting all the facts from their home town reporters, but this might not be the case. What if you could gather your own information and share it with your community? Well, now you can. Media outlets are emerging into a new era of informing the public. Many news outlets are now introducing online posting sites where readers can add and debate a certian topic. The Chicago Daily News is an online newspaper that is written soly by and for Chicago residents. Their mission is,"dedicated to brining you Chicago stories you wont find anywhere else."

This form of cyberjournalism is an "open source" journalism method. Here the news topic becomes a conversation or blog between readers and the reporters themselves. They are striving in educating the community by giving them the chance to investigate the issue and report it. Since its debut in December 2005, The Daily News has has attracted well over many thousands of visitors to their site per month.

When reading your local newspaper, one can only wonder if journalists are being objective and bias in there reporting of the topic. With this new form of news information, the reader can find out for his/her self. The Daily News states," We encourage readers to take part in gathering and writing the news that appears on the site."

In conclusion, the only way to be confident in that you are receiving all thew facts. Is to start digging for the truth for yourself and share it with your community. Local media only has so much room to report the news, so there might be some gaps in the story. The Daily News is showing true leadership in reporting the news to its readers.

Fans Vs. Favorites

"I think the fans versus favorites setup is the ultimate challenge because we have the favorites who have obviously played the game before, coming in here with experience. But at the same time you have us (the fans) and we know their game. We know not only their strengths but weaknesses too. So I think that puts us at a huge advantage."
by: Alexis

To this day, I have only seen a handful of Survivor Episodes. If you have seen one, you have seen them all! I feel Alexis has a good point. The fans are at an advantage over the favorites due to the fans learned all their habits and methods of playing the game. The media has established "Triggers" in the fan population, in a sense, making them watch Survivor religiously. Any time a message appears about the show, the fan immediately focuses on the message, no matter how insignificant it really is.

In the end , the fans have a lead over the favorites, but who's to say they wont change their game plan for this season. It will be exciting to see how this competition plays out for the participants and also the spectators.

Max Headroom "War"

In this episode of Max Headroom, the main character, Edison Carter works for one of the leading media networks, channel 23. He is a reporter and an investigator that is trying to discover who is behind these terrorists attacks by the White Brigade. The opposing network, Break thru T.V., is utilizing all these attacks to their advantage in raising their ratings.

This episode truly depicts a society that is media saturated controlled by a few leading networks. These networks seen to go to any length to raise their ratings during their so called "global sweep." To survive in this type of industry, the network with the best news wins the ratings. Break thru T.V. is stealing the sponsors from network 23 by funding this White brigade to raise ratings. Instead of the population revolting to the monopoly the networks have on the media, they follow every headline without hi station or thought. This is a society that is media saturated. In the end, Carter catches the bag guys and restores order to the networks.